Does Our Full Time Union Officer Honor Equality?

Today after our Union Charter meeting our financial secretary approached me to inform me that the only communication I am allowed to conduct with her is via email. She continued to inform me that I am not authorized to post any recordings of her and walked away from me ignoring me. After the exposure of the meeting she invited me to on June 2^nd, 2011 I have to agree that the only secure communication with our Union Officers is documented communications. It has already been demonstrated to me that I will be told one thing and when I quote the statements made to me it is denied. In one room there were 4 people, 1 union member, 1 executive board officer and 2 full time officers. Who will the membership believe? The 1 member or the 3 officers? So I will respect this elected full time officer who swore to equally represent all members her request.

It is not legal to release recordings of people engaged in private conversation without the knowledge of being recorded. I released a voice message left on my phone explaining about how credit cards play a key role in report numbers not matching. Was it legal for me to do this? Well she left a voice message on my phone. Did she know she was being recorded? How else would a get the message? Any time a person leaves a message on any recorded device I would have to say you know you are being recorded. The message I posted was an explanation why numbers are not matching. For our financial secretary to be so upset about that being post opens the door to why she might be so upset.

In our meeting I never brought up the name of Tom Wallis yet the officers brought that name up a few times. Why was his name brought up? Is there worry I am making comparisons? Should there be worry? I was just pointing out that numbers are not matching and do not add up as presented to the membership. When I present clear documentation of this the conversation turned towards intimidating type comments and even an insult.

Believe it or not I am now apparently limited to only communicate to our elected Financial Secretary via Email as instructed to me by our Financial Secretary. Earlier today our President commented to many members that it doesn’t matter if we like one or the other, we are still members of the same union. Our elected officers should be the role models of this and look at the example presented to me.

If you would like a better understand of why our Financial Secretary is so upset with me you will have to do a little research. First you need to attend a union charter meeting and save the meeting minutes that is available for you to pick up at the table where you sign in. Save that because getting that same copy later is not an easy task. Then you have to wait for the following months meeting and attend that one. Make sure to again collect that meeting minutes for that month. Now you have two months’ worth of reports. Now you will have to do some math work. I will break it down for you here to help out.

1. On the report that you collected from the first month find the year to date financial statement. On that page at the very bottom right side you will see a total number. Write that number down.

2. On the report that you collected from the second month find the monthly financial statement. On that page towards the bottom right (if the auxiliary accounts are on the same page then count where it says “TriMet Auxiliary Accounts as a different page) you will see a total. Take that total and write it down. Here is where it can be a little tricky. If the first number you wrote down from the month before is a negative number that means our balance is currently in the negative and if the second number is also a negative number you will need to add both numbers together. If the first number is negative and the second is positive you need to subtract the second number from the first. If the first number is positive and the second number is negative you must subtract the second number from the first number. If both numbers are positive you add the two together. This will give you a total.

3. Now look on the report you saved from the second meeting and locate the year to date financial statement. Match the total shown there and if they match then all is good. If they do not match something has been changed somewhere.

What you just did was take July 2010 – first month year to date and added the second months’ monthly report total. This should give you the new total of the July 2010 – second month year to date report. My complaint is I have looked at now the past 7 months and they do not match. My meeting with full time officers reveals that these reports are not meant to match and the members only get a general idea of about where our financial status stands. The only groups that get the respect of an accurate report are the US government and our International. We are on a different reporting system and our reports are able to be changed as sees fit by our full time officers. None of the numbers reported to us will match the LM2’s or the 9-90’s and to receive one of those reports it must be requested to our union or retrieved online from our government.

So do our full time officers offer us equality?

Are we offered the same respect as our government or international?
Does each member have the equal opportunity to communicate with elected officers the same way?